CHAPTER 8

“ALL RIGHT,” Sisko said to Kira and Arla as the turbolift began its short trip from the Promenade to the Operations Center, “who wants to start? The Day of Withdrawal.”

Kira looked at Arla, who shook her head. “It only took a day on DS9,” Kira said. “But it was more like a week of withdrawal on Bajor. The Cardassians pulled back to their garrisons and the spaceports in stages.” She paused for a moment, clearly remembering scenes of devastating destruction, then doggedly continued. “Burning the villages, poisoning the land and the rivers. For the first few days, the Resistance didn't know it was happening everywhere. Each cell thought it was seeing the leadup to a concentrated regional bombing attack. The Cardassians had done that sort of thing before.”

The lift rose up through the final deck and, as always, Sisko felt a familiar sense of coming home. Ops was the heart of Deep Space 9, as much so as the bridge of a starship. Even the harsh angles and bare metal of its towering Cardassian components had become an oddly welcoming sight to him.

He exited the lift car with Kira and Arla close behind him and headed off in the direction of the science station, where Jadzia was on duty. She was running a metallurgical analysis on her screens.

“Dax,” Sisko said, “join us.” He nodded at the short flight of stairs leading to his office. Jadzia rose from her station to follow him at once.

As Sisko started up those stairs, he asked Kira if she could remember exactly where she had been on the Day of Withdrawal.

She shook her head with a rueful smile. “I missed it. Twenty years in the Resistance, and the week the Cardassians left I was in a triage center in Dahkur, burning with fever and pretty much delirious. Lake flu. It swept through the whole province that year.”

“No lasting effects, I hope.”

Kira shrugged. “So do I.”

Behind them, Jadzia stepped through the entranceway, and the doors to Sisko's office slid shut.

“What about you, Commander?” Sisko asked Arla. He was pleased to see that whatever air of overfamiliarity she had exhibited an hour ago, she was keeping it in check now.

“Oh, I was on the Solok.”

Sisko hadn't recalled that posting from his quick glance at the Bajoran newcomer's file. “The Vulcan science vessel?”

Arla nodded. “We were at Qo'noS. A very dull assignment to remap the Praxis Ring.”

“So, you weren't involved in any of the events of Withdrawal, either?”

Kira broke in. “She wasn't involved in the Occupation. Period.”

As if a ship had just decloaked before him, Sisko was suddenly aware of the tension between the two Bajoran officers, and realized with a start that it had been there since he had first seen them meet.

He exchanged a quick glance with Jadzia, and her subtle nod confirmed that she saw the same animosity. Sisko wondered how he had missed it. But he could guess what was behind it.

“Is that right?” he asked in as neutral a fashion as he could.

Arla kept her eyes on him, ignoring Kira. “My grandparents lived on B'hal Ta. A Bajoran colony world. When the Cardassians annexed Bajor, my family was able to relocate to New Sydney. That's where I was born.”

“You were fortunate,” Sisko said. He decided that that accident of fate was more than enough reason to account for the major's feelings toward Arla Rees. He knew that there were those on Bajor—especially those who had served in the Resistance like Kira—who believed that expatriate Bajorans who had not suffered through the Occupation, and who had not voluntarily returned to their homeworld or taken up arms against Cardassia, were only one step removed from being collaborators.

“Yes, sir, very fortunate.”

Sisko decided to bring the conversation back to the lesscontroversial present. “So, from your experience, Major, and from any research you might have done, Commander, can you think of any reason why personnel on board DS9 on the Day of Withdrawal might have suffered from memory loss, selective or otherwise?”

“Benjamin?” Jadzia asked. “Who's suffering from memory loss?”

Sisko quickly summarized for his old friend Quark's claim to be missing memories of the day in question, and the Ferengi's suspicions that Odo and Garak were similarly affected.

“Fascinating,” Jadzia said. “The old name for it is ‘Missing Time Syndrome.’ On Earth, it goes back centuries, before first contact, when the Reticulii were conducting their genetic profiling of humans and didn't want anyone in the sample group to know they had been transported to the orbiting medical ships. Today, the Federation's own First Contact Office uses the same techniques if a duck blind's exposed or a precontact investigator is detected.”

“In this case,” Sisko said, “I think we can rule out any involvement by the Reticulii or the First Contact Office. What other possibilities should we consider? Medical experimentation?”

Kira shook her head. “The Cardassians conducted a horrendous amount of so-called medical research on Bajoran prisoners. Some of it involved mind control. But that was mostly in the camps. Up here, they kept the slave workers in line with force and random executions. So I think it's unlikely anyone experimented on Quark—especially since, if the Cardassians had experimented on him, their protocols usually called for the experimental subjects to be killed when the experiment was finished.”

Arla looked hesitant, but now offered her own theory. “I don't know how relevant this is, but starships use anesthezine gas to disable intruders, and memory lapses are sometimes reported as a side effect.”

Sisko looked at Kira. “We have a Starfleet anesthezine system installed on DS9. But there're also the remnants of a Cardassian neurozine gas dispersal network which, as I recall, was kept on hand in case of worker revolt.”

Kira's voice was bitter. “Crowd-control inhalants like anesthezine are nonlethal. And nonlethality was never a concern of the Cardassians. They used neurozine at fatal concentrations, and if they had used it up here on the Day of Withdrawal, there would have been a lot more than just four Bajorans dead.”

Sisko turned to Dax, who had so many times in the past been able to share the wisdom and experience of her past hosts. “Old Man?”

But she didn't look hopeful. “Benjamin, there're so many methods of blocking memories that I wouldn't know where to begin without more information.”

“What kind of information?”

Jadzia pressed her lips together in thought. “Well, I'd like to know how much time Quark believes he's missing. Is it the same length of time that Odo and Garak can't account for? Is it the exact same period of time? Were they together on the Day of Withdrawal? Were they exposed to . . . a radiation leak? An unusual subspace discharge?” Her face brightened as if she had just had a sudden insight.

“Something just occurred to you,” Sisko said.

“I talked with Odo yesterday about his investigation into the Andorian's death. He thinks a microwave weapon was used, but I think it's possible some sort of accidental energy pulse could have caused similar injuries.”

Sisko smiled at Jadzia. “Old Man, you've been spending too much time in the holosuites with Worf. You were the reason we even found the Cardassians' bodies. Right after your talk with him, Odo sent a team down to the lower levels to look for energy anomalies. They found one where a power conduit entered the lower module. And Rom's team found that the cause of the anomaly was that the Cardassians had been transporter-fused into the inner hull plates, weakening the shielding.”

Jadzia made a face at Sisko. After so many years of friendship, she was allowed more freedom with Starfleet protocol. “I knew that, Benjamin. I was standing by with the tractor beam when Rom found the bodies. I was just wondering if an anomalous energy event that resulted in microwave radiation could also be tied to an anomalous temporal event.”

“An anomalous temporal event?” Arla said. “Those are incredibly rare.”

“Not on DS9,” Sisko said. “Unexpected time shifts are quite common in this region of space.”

Jadzia confirmed it. “Actually, the odd temporal events we've experienced in the past almost all arise in some way out of our proximity to the wormhole. The structure of subspace is extremely twisted in this region. What's really surprising is that we don't experience even more jumps in time than we do. But on the Day of Withdrawal, the station was still in orbit of Bajor. And the planet's gravity well would have provided a great deal of shielding against almost any wormhole-related phenomena.”

Sisko sat down on the corner of his desk, reached back, and picked up his baseball. “Okay, so we can rule that possibility out, too. But I still want this looked into.

“Major Kira,” he said, rolling the ball back and forth in his fingers, feeling its comforting contours relax him as they always did, freeing him to think more clearly. “The constable seemed reluctant to discuss the Day of Withdrawal in the Infirmary. Perhaps he won't be as reluctant speaking with you. See if you can get him to talk about what he remembers from that day.”

Kira seemed surprised by the request. “Captain, I'm not sure I feel comfortable doing that.”

Sisko understood her reluctance. Everyone on the station knew about the love affair that had blossomed between Kira and Odo in the last month. And as their friend and colleague, Sisko was happy for both of them. “I'm not asking you to betray a trust, Major. Let Odo know that you're asking on my behalf. Let him know that I understand his reluctance to discuss what he remembers in front of Garak, but that I would appreciate a more forthright account that will remain confidential.”

Kira nodded, accepting his argument.

Sisko tossed his baseball up a few centimeters, then caught it again. “Commander Arla, since I'm assuming you've had few if any dealings with Cardassians, I'm assigning you to question Garak.”

Arla's eyes widened. “Question him about what, sir?”

“What Dax wants to know. I want a timeline of everything that happened to Odo and Garak and Quark on the Day of Withdrawal.” Then he smiled winningly at Jadzia.

“Don't tell me,” she said, pouting. “I get to talk to Quark.”

Sisko's grin grew. “I can't imagine anyone else he'd rather open up to.”

“Captain,” Kira broke in briskly, “can I ask why something that happened six years ago is important enough for us to drop our other duties and—”

“No one's dropping their other duties,” Sisko said. “There's a war on.”

“Exactly,” Kira agreed. “And I don't see the point of expending extra effort just to solve the deaths of two Cardassians, especially one who was in a death squad.”

Sisko replaced his ball on his desk, then stood up to address Kira and the others, not as their coworker and friend but as their commanding officer and captain of Deep Space 9. “Major, those two dead Cardassians represent a mystery. And I will not have mysteries on my station. Because until we find out how those Cardassians died, and why Quark and perhaps two other people on this station had their memories interfered with, I can't be certain if any of it might happen again. And believe me, if an attack wing of Jem'Hadar fighters is bearing down at us, I want to know that my officers are not suddenly going to develop a case of amnesia and end up fused into the hull plates. Is that clear?”

Kira, Arla, and even Jadzia stood at attention. “Yes, sir,” Kira said.

“Right away, sir,” Arla added.

“Ben, I'll speak to Quark as soon as Odo's finished with him,” Jadzia confirmed.

Sisko could see that there was more that Jadzia wanted to say. “Something else?” he asked.

“What about the Andorian?”

“Quark's many things,” Sisko said reluctantly, “but he's no murderer. Though I do think Odo's enjoying this chance to make him sweat. And at the same time, I think that by appearing to be convinced that Quark is guilty, Odo's making the real murderer feel overconfident.”

Arla seemed shocked by Sisko's statement. “Sir, do you honestly believe that the constable has the wrong man, and that the real killer is still free on the station?”

“That's exactly what I think, Commander.”

“But . . .” Arla said, obviously disturbed by the thought, “isn't knowingly permitting the continued custody of an innocent man a violation of Starfleet directives concerning the application of local laws? And aren't you risking the real murderer escaping? Not to mention putting the other personnel on this station at risk of being killed?”

“Commander, Starfleet regulations are written by bureaucrats in comfortable offices back on Earth. As captain of this station, I do have the authority to . . . be flexible in how I choose to follow those regulations, whenever I feel a given situation is outside the parameters Starfleet considered when the regulations were written. Believe me, Commander, this entire station falls outside those parameters.”

Jadzia smiled at Sisko, and then took the confused commander's arm. “Odo won't be through questioning Quark for a while. Why don't we get some raktajino and . . . we'll talk.”

Sisko could see that Arla was flattered by Jadzia's request; she left the office with her, Major Kira following a moment later.

As Sisko stood in the doorway to his office watching the three officers head for the turbolift, he was pleased to unexpectedly see his son, Jake, just emerging from the lift on the main deck below. The love he felt for his boy, this anchor for him in the storm of events that regularly engulfed this station, filled Sisko with a transcendent joy.

But his sudden smile was undercut as he saw who stepped out of the lift behind Jake: Jake's best friend, Nog, and Chief O'Brien.

Jake looked up to wave at him, and Sisko returned the gesture, growing even more concerned as he noted Jake's halfhearted smile, Nog's nervous expression, and O'Brien's flushed cheeks.

“Hi, Dad,” Jake called out as he took the stairs to the upper level, two at a time.

“Sir,” Nog added crisply, just behind Jake.

Sisko frowned, and the three visitors froze where they stood. “You know, if this were six years ago and I saw you three coming up here like this, I'd think Chief O'Brien had caught you boys playing in the Jefferies tubes again. But you two young men are too old for that now, aren't you?”

O'Brien was wheezing slightly as he resumed climbing the stairs. “Funny you should say that, sir.”

Sisko sighed. “Should we step inside?”

“Yes, sir,” Jake said glumly.

Sisko followed the three into his office, suspecting he wasn't going to like what they had to tell him.

He was right.